


Marble & Granite

by Regency



Category: White Collar
Genre: Body Worship, Loyalty, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-11
Updated: 2012-03-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 19:11:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regency/pseuds/Regency
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal appreciates humanity, heaven-sent art that he can’t steal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marble & Granite

                No one has ever called Peter Burke beautiful and Neal thinks that’s a shame.  There’s a beauty in the man that transcends the aesthetic.  There’s a grace and poise in his lack refinement that could inspire novels.  If Neal were the kind to put elegant pen to paper, he’d write sonnets about the beauty of Peter Burke and about the artistry of his hands.

                But he isn’t that kind.

                He cherishes art by spiriting it away for his keeping, and sometimes selling.  He hoards it so that he can stare at it for hours in his own time and parse the artist’s meaning – the true meaning, not what academics profess the truth to be.  The truths that live in brushstrokes and in the details, at the heart of any piece.

He hoards beauty, because he is as greedy as an enchanted public all by himself. He dotes on statuettes and takes care with rare paintings.  He ensures that they are as beloved by passing time as they are by him. But he never shares with another soul the things he holds so dear.  It’s a weakness of his, one of many.  Neal may love a multitude of people, but it’s art that possesses his heart. And when the lines blur between easy smiles and precious works, love and fascination make a dangerous combination. 

Just as he labored over parting with Kate’s bright blue eyes and coy smile, he rails against letting go of hands that could be carved from granite.  He labors over a chipped-marble grin and cast-iron shoulders.  An ordinary work made glorious by interpretation and it all but belongs to him, is as much his own as anything that’s ever been vanished by his magic.

Yet, there isn’t a day that he doesn’t want to run.  There isn’t a day in which the anonymous hustle of the New York streets doesn’t call to his blood.  The Wild Blue Yonder isn’t so wild to a wanderer and it’s the wandering he misses.  This stillness makes him ache, and the border lines that declare his life nearly normal make him itch.  He wants out, he always has; this has never been his world. 

But he remains for the beauty, for the tame light that da Vinci captured in the _Mona Lisa_ to glow in those he knows. It’s something he would bottle if he could and take with him on the road.  Such a thing should stand in museums to be admired, to inspire, to terrify.  Men like Neal flee from that glow, because it makes them stand still and adore.  It chains their hearts to cinderblocks and forever clips their wings.

So here he is, watching Peter pace with his granite hands on his hips and a grimace on his marble face, wondering if he cannot be the kind of admirer who steals whether he can be one who writes instead.

_In the heart of a city that was a world of its own, there lived a man made out of stone.  He lived and breathed the word ‘justice’ and wanted nothing, no fame or wealth, so much as he wanted justice for all.  For him, I abandoned my freedom. I have only sometimes regretted it…_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from White Collar. They are the property of their producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.


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